Online Reporter
Dr Evans Sagomba
WORLD Television Day 2025 is an opportune moment for the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) to move from reflection to design: to translate broad principles about artificial intelligence into a practical, enforceable and future-ready strategy for broadcasting over the next six years.
The goal should be clear and singular, to enable Zimbabwe’s broadcasting ecosystem to harness AI in ways that safeguard editorial independence, defend cultural sovereignty, build sovereign capacity and unlock commercial and public value opportunities while remaining interoperable with global norms. The following structured, connected recommendations set out how BAZ can make that ambition real.
First, the strategy must start with an unequivocal strategic framing. The strategy must state its purpose in plain language: to allow broadcasters to adopt AI safely, ethically and competitively while protecting editorial standards, public interest values and Zimbabwean cultural expression. From that purpose flow three measurable objectives: protect editorial sovereignty and the public interest; build sovereign capacity and inclusion; and secure interoperability and market access. These objectives should be published as the strategy’s north star and used to assess every policy instrument, procurement decision and partnership the sector undertakes.
Second, there must be a deliberate effort to anchor the strategy in a compact constitutional core of principles that all broadcasting AI must respect. These principles should be principle-based rather than highly prescriptive so that they are applicable across formats and technology cycles. At minimum, the core should include: safety (defined by reliability thresholds, resilience to manipulation and appropriate content moderation); transparency (auditable disclosures about provenance, training data characteristics and limitations); human oversight (retaining editorial responsibility for sensitive content and decisions); cultural integrity (supporting local languages, heritage and editorial plurality); and redress and accountability (clear complaint and correction pathways). Embedding these principles in regulatory guidance, procurement rules, and broadcasters’ codes of practice will provide a stable baseline while permitting contextualised application across public, commercial and community broadcasting.
Third, the translation of the broadcasting act is key. Translate the act into a two-layer operating model that unites global interoperability with local specificity. The first layer, a shared technical core, should align Zimbabwe with international technical standards for model testing, explainability metrics, adversarial resilience and provenance. The second layer, a national overlay, will set sector-specific rules for broadcasting, such as metadata requirements for AI-generated content, editorial review thresholds, political advertising controls and synthetic media guidelines.
Operational instruments to make this model work include a model passport (a machine-readable ledger documenting provenance, validation test outcomes and declared limitations), a national certification regime and a regulatory sandbox to test new systems under oversight.
These instruments allow Zimbabwe to plug and play with global tools while retaining the capacity to evaluate and adapt them to local needs.
Fourth, there should be a move towards making capacity building and infrastructure non-negotiable rather than aspirational. Standards without testing labs and skilled professionals are hollow. BAZ should prioritise three concrete investments: a national AI testing and validation facility hosted within a public media institution or university; sustained human capital programmes for journalists, editors, technical staff and regulators that focus on AI literacy and oversight; and a strategy for affordable compute and data governance that reduces dependency on distant providers.
Funding for these priorities should be blended, drawing on broadcasting levies, targeted donor and multilateral grants conditioned on capacity transfer, and public–private partnerships that require technology partners to invest in local labs, training and data stewardship.
Fifth, reconfiguration is of paramount importance; reconfigure broadcasting laws and arrangements to institutionalise participation and accountability. BAZ should act as convener and regulator by establishing a Broadcasting AI Advisory Forum composed of broadcasters (public and private), unions, academia, consumer groups and technology providers. Within BAZ, create a National AI in Broadcasting Unit tasked with operationalising the strategy, administering the model passport and coordinating the testing lab and training efforts. Regional engagement is essential: Zimbabwe should actively participate in SADC and African union initiatives to harmonise standards, pool testing resources, and negotiate regional compute and data sharing arrangements. Governance must be transparent, participatory and resilient to capture: regular public consultations, accessible transparency reports and independent oversight mechanisms will protect legitimacy.
Sixth, BAZ should use procurement and market incentives strategically to shape vendor behaviour and nurture local innovation. Make compliance with passport and certification standards a procurement condition for content moderation services, generative media platforms and production tools. Contracts with international vendors should carry local innovation clauses, capacity transfer obligations, source code escrow for critical systems and audit rights, to avoid lock-in and safeguard national interests. At the same time, deploy positive incentives for local suppliers through tax reliefs, seed grants and commissioning preferences for Zimbabwean firms building language models, verification tools and culturally attuned content generators. This dual approach reduces dependence on black box imports while growing a domestic ecosystem.
Seventh, design accountability, redress and public trust mechanisms as core performance metrics. Trust is not an incidental by product; it is the strategy’s principal outcome. BAZ should mandate transparent audits of sectoral AI use, publish certification registers and incidents, and require broadcasters to provide simple, timetabled complaint channels for audiences harmed by AI-driven content. Parallel public literacy campaigns must explain what AI does in broadcasting, how citizens can contest automated decisions and how to recognise synthetic media. Such measures convert abstract principles into everyday protections that audiences can understand and rely on.
Eighth, the strategy should set a clear, phased roadmap with measurable milestones and independent evaluation. Practical milestones could include: Conduct a comprehensive review, publish a public evaluation of outcomes and present a reform package for the next phase. Evaluation metrics should be concrete: number of certified systems, training completions, incidents of harmful AI content and surveys of audience trust.
All in all, the strategy must be both technical and civic. AI will magnify both virtue and vice; governance must therefore be moral, pragmatic and participatory. BAZ has an opportunity to lead a model that is Zimbabwean in purpose and global in practice: to insist that global AI interoperability does not mean cultural surrender, and that inclusion and capacity are core design features rather than afterthoughts. By combining a principle-based constitutional core, a two-layer operating model, deliberate capacity investments, inclusive institutions and market levers that favour local innovation, Zimbabwe can construct a broadcasting AI strategy that protects its cultural sovereignty, secures public trust and positions the sector to participate in regional and global markets on equal terms.
World Television Day is a reminder that broadcasting shapes national narratives and civic life. The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe can and should convert that reminder into an architecture for action. With disciplined priorities, transparent governance and an insistence on capacity and inclusion, the Intelligent Age can become a vehicle for public service to thrive and for Zimbabwean voices to be heard, trusted and respected at home and abroad.
About the Author: Dr Evans Sagomba is a Doctor of Philosophy and Chartered Marketer (CMktr, FCIM) with an MPhil and PhD in Philosophy. He specialises in AI, Ethics, and Policy Research, and is an AI Governance and Policy Consultant. His expertise extends to the Ethics of War and Peace, Philosophy of Development, and Political Philosophy. [email protected]. ORCID: 0009-0007-0681-0329.
Social media handles: LinkedIn; @ Dr. Evans Sagomba (MSc Marketing)(FCIM )(MPhil) (PhD)
X: @esagomba
